A proposal, of sorts
by flobberworm93
Summary: Marius/Cosette modern AU, in which Pontmercy Pontmercies, and Cosette laughs. Thanks to theangelshavetheearhat on tumblr for helping me out!


_A/N: So in the Brick, Cosette wasn't allowed to see Marius until he'd recovered because it wasn't proper and he was "nude three quarters of the time". (I'm not sure why he had to be naked when he wasn't injured below the waist? I get that he would have worn a nightshirt and no pants, but it's not too hard to cut open the top of a nightshirt.) Anyway, I decided this had to be remedied. Hence the fluffy modern AU. Enjoy._

Marius figured it was midafternoon when he woke up, because only Cosette was there with him. Since he'd been moved from intensive care, his grandfather had taken to going home for a few hours in the afternoons, in order to give the two of them some time alone.

It was a familiar routine: he rolled over and smiled at her; she closed her book and bent down to kiss his forehead; he pushed himself up on his good arm (careful, since the first incident, to avoid bumping heads); and she adjusted his pillows.

"How are you feeling?" she asked him.

"Better, I think."

"I thought you might be. The doctor was just telling your grandfather that you should be up and walking around soon enough. By the end of this week, even."

Cosette smiled in anticipation of his response, but when Marius next spoke, it was with a quiet and pensive air.

"It seems strange," he said, "walking around. Going home."

Marius never knew what would set off these sorts of moods in him. He'd once overheard a comment about sterilizing some equipment, and suddenly he was watching Joly wipe down his gun handle with disinfectant, only to have Courfeyrac snatch the gun from his hands and proclaim that everyone had to kiss it for good luck. It had been strange behavior for both of them, since they already knew they were going to die.

And then there was the young nurse with the worn-out face, who once, when she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, had looked so much like Eponine lying on the ground that Marius could no longer look when she walked past.

"I've hardly even gotten out of bed," he told Cosette now. "Not since before. I can't imagine walking."

She took his hand. "You'll get the hang of it."

It was Cosette, he knew, who kept these moods at bay. He remembered hearing from that same nurse how she'd hardly left his side from day one, even when he'd been too heavily sedated to know she was there, and how her father had the nurse making sure she ate.

"What some of us wouldn't give for that," she'd said. "Don't take her for granted." As if Marius needed to be told.

Keeping his eyes on that blessedly steady smile of hers, he leaned back against his pillows. "Did the doctor say anything about my shoulder?" he asked, stroking her hand absentmindedly.

"It should heal almost completely, but it'll be a few weeks before you can start on physical therapy."

He sighed in frustration. "_Start _on it?"

"You messed it up pretty bad, Marius. It almost..." She trailed off before catching herself. "You're lucky."

"I know, Cosette, I am incredibly lucky, but I want to be able to hold you, I want to pick you up, I want to dance with you at our wedding-"

"Wedding?"

Cosette froze. Marius turned an impossible shade of crimson.

"Oh! Um, Cosette, I'm-uh-I'm sorry," he stammered, "they have me on all these painkillers, I-I think they've added a new one now-and I can't-_think_-before I speak, it's-I mean, I know it's much too forward, and too soon–"

He wondered why she let him keep speaking. When he looked up, he saw that Cosette had turned crimson herself, and was pressing a hand to her face to hold back laughter. And he realized with horror that she must have been laughing at _him_. Oh, God, had he ruined everything now?

Neither of them spoke: Marius for shame, and Cosette, he was sure, only for fear of offending him.

He tried not to imagine what it was going to be like when she left.

It was Cosette who finally broke the silence. She composed herself as well as she could, and lowered her hand from her face. Still giggling like a schoolgirl, she asked him, "Do you mean it?"

"What?"

"Do you really want to get married?"

Still thinking himself ridiculed, he stared intently at the pattern on his hospital gown. He couldn't speak.

"Because if you do, Marius, then you should ask me properly."

He looked up at her, astonished, and she held his gaze. He gave her a look as if to ask, "Do you really mean it?" and she gave him a look as if to answer, "I really do."

Marius blushed again, and muttered something incoherent about a hospital gown.

"What?"

"I can't kneel in a hospital gown," he repeated.

"Never mind the gown, you'd fall over! I'll forgive it."

He took a deep breath.

"Well."

"Well?"

"Cosette Fauchelevent-"

"Euphrasie."

"Euphrasie Fauchelevent, will you marry me?"

Cosette laughed, and Marius had no doubt this time that it was joyful and genuine, because there were breathless little yesses scattered among it. And he laughed too, for the first time, he realized, since before.

It no longer seemed strange that he might walk again.


End file.
